Calculating emissions and carbon footprints is “a complex and flawed process”, said The New York Times. “At best it provides an estimate, usually reported as kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents.”
Even if these estimates are accurate, offsets are “a super-murky world without a whole lot of oversight”, according to Jamie Alexander, director of Drawdown Labs, a nonprofit that works with tech companies on climate solutions.
Greenpeace concluded that “the big problem with offsets isn’t that what they offer is bad – tree planting or renewable energy and efficiency for poor communities are all good things – but rather that they don’t do what they say on the tin.
“They don’t actually cancel out – er, offset – the emissions to which they are linked.”